Fellowships

Publius Fellowship (est. 1979): during the constitutional ratification debates, opponents of the proposed Constitution considered the document flawed or even sinister. Some thought it would move America closer to despotism than democracy. Writing as “Publius,” Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay took to the pages of New York newspapers to defend the Constitution as more than a “bundle of compromises” and as the best political and institutional arrangement for securing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

While the opinions found in Publius’ work came from years of experience under the Articles of Confederation, they were also the product of sustained reflection on history and politics. Thomas Jefferson remarked that The Federalist was “the best commentary on government, which was ever written.” Our oldest fellowship program, the Publius Fellowship was designed to instill in new generations of Americans that same attention to the higher principles of politics. For two weeks, Fellows are engaged in seminars with our distinguished faculty on topics like the Declaration of Independence and its connection to the Constitution; Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War; the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the rise of Modern Liberalism; Conservatism and Liberalism Today; and the application of American political thought and principles to contemporary policy. Publius Fellows are recent college graduates, graduate students, and promising young men and women at the beginning of their careers in journalism and public policy.

Lincoln Fellowship (est. 1996): Lincoln, no less than the Founders, believed that free government is possible only if it recognizes and protects the equal natural rights of all human beings. Lincoln Fellows discuss how the statesmanship and political thought of the Founders and Lincoln should guide policymakers today. They are public policy professionals, senior journalists, and media veterans in mid-career who are exercising influence on and hold key positions in national politics. The Claremont Institute extends warm gratitude to the Bowen Educational Trust for its generous sponsorship of the Lincoln Fellowship. William H. Bowen was an American entrepreneur and patriot, and his educational foundation has long been a generous patron of the Claremont Institute. “The Lincoln Fellows program taught me more about the American founding in a week than I learned in four years of a politics degree.” Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board Member and Host of Opinion Journal on WSJ Live

John Marshall Fellowship (est. 2012): We created our newest fellowship program to combat the conservative legal positivism and liberal living constitutionalism that stand in the way of the preservation of limited constitutional government in the United States. The John Marshall Fellowship seeks to recover limited constitutional government by training the next generation of legal thinkers and practitioners in the natural law jurisprudence of the American Founding. John Marshall Fellows are recent law school graduates on their way to federal clerkships, positions in government, and the legal academy. We are proud of a very auspicious start to the John Marshall Fellowship, which has already hosted an impressive group of Fellows hailing from top-tier law schools like Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, UC Berkeley, the University of Virginia, and the University of Chicago. In addition to federal district courts and state supreme courts, our fellows have gone on to clerk for the Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and D.C. Circuits.

Speechwriters Fellowship (est. 2017): Modeled after our prestigious Lincoln Fellowship, but tailored specifically for speechwriters, the Claremont Institute Speechwriters Fellowship will combine an education in the principles of the American Founding with a study of modern political speech craft. The program format will consist of evening classes once a week for eight weeks. The focus of the first half of the course will be statesmanship and American political rhetoric. These classes will be led primarily by Claremont Faculty members and Senior Fellows. The emphasis of the second half of the course will be the application of studied themes to contemporary speechwriting practices. These courses will be taught by former Presidential speechwriters and government advisors, under the direction of former Reagan White House Speechwriter, Clark Judge.